Day Seven- November 8, 2007

It was not a very productive day for me today. When I woke up this morning, all of the local TV news stations were off the air including CNN. The president declared a state of emergency last night and took over control of the media. I did not go to the orphanage with Gil today since I had meetings here in Tbilisi with various people. My first meeting was with the president of the local Rotary club in Tbilisi. He was a very nice man and I learned very much from him. He suggested that the responsibility for the orphanages was going to be shifted from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Health. He also suggested that the government may sell the orphanages to private persons and that we should be very careful about spending money on the building until we know what they are going to do. He suggested that I write an official letter to the government asking them what their plans are and that would require them to give me an official answer within 10 days. I also talked to him about us hiring someone to come to the orphanage to provide psychological help and to teach them personal responsibility and respect. He really liked that idea and gave us a name of someone he thought would do a very good job at that. I may meet with that person tomorrow.

My next meeting was at the American Embassy and that was essentially a complete waste of time. They had no interest at all in helping us, and basically sent me on my way and said good luck. My last meeting was scheduled for 4:00 at the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education is responsible for all orphanages in Georgia. We waited until 5:00 and the Minister never showed up. After I got back to the hotel, I wrote both letters to the Minister of Education and the Minister of Economy before going to sleep.